“Dear Young People, Don’t Vote..”

This video was made by NowThis news as a PSA which is directed towards young people; it is using reverse psychology to motivate us young adults to start voting for what matters to us and to recognize our power. In this video, there are a bunch of different elders that are giving reasons why we “shouldn’t” vote. This video uses brutal humor to get the young adults motivated into wanting to vote. By stating all of the different reasons why young people shouldn’t vote, it is bringing awareness to these young people that these topics that the elders are mentioning in the video are important and there is a need to vote. This video was shared on social media which has been viewed over 4.68 million times; mainly by young adults in which this video is being targeted towards. It is relevant how this video was posted to social media since social media is filled with many young users. It was meant to make young adults angry by labeling us a certain way, and by pointing out many problems we are facing. By calling out young people in this video, it shows that it is extremely important for us to understand that us as young adults need to be aware of what is happening around us and to make a change for the better and for our future.

The video starts off by elders saying “Dear young people don’t vote, everything is fine.” Naturally, when one tells a young person to do something, they want and do the opposite. Just by that first line, the video makes young people pay attention; it is something that one would not expect to hear which catches our attention. We grew up hearing how important it is to vote and in this video, we are hearing the exact opposite which is odd to hear. It calls out young people from the start and just from the beginning of the video, the audience is interested by wanting to know why the video only targeted the “young people” and why they shouldn’t vote. The video then goes on with saying, “Trump. That was us.” Us as “young people” see the world differently than elders. We are in a generation where everything is changing, we have different mindsets, beliefs and were raised a lot differently from elders. If young people aren’t voting, then they aren’t taking a chance to make those changes for the future, they are simply letting the elders vote for the same things over and over again. In order to break the cycle, this video is trying to tell us that things aren’t going to change for the better if we don’t do something about it now. As an example, what they state next in the video, “Sure, school shootings are sad, but I haven’t been in a school for 50 years…” This is just one of the many brutal statements in this video that is meant to enrage the audience and realize that we NEED to make a change and the change won’t happen without the young adult’s votes. If young people aren’t voting, there won’t be an effect of change and this video is trying to motivate us and make us realize that we need to start making a change for the better. “You might even share this video on Facebook, but you won’t vote. You young people never do.” This statement attacks young people by labeling us as a certain way. Young adults engage in conversation all over social media about politics, however they prefer to post about how they feel about it rather than vote. Millennials are viewed as “lazy, angry, whiny, etc..” As the video also states, “Because we’re a generation of doers, not whiners.” This was meant to anger young people, meant to want us to prove the elders wrong. The elders in this video make it clear that they vote every single election, and us as young adults are basically having our world “controlled” and we don’t do anything about it by not voting; “Every single election. We’ll be there, but you won’t” The video then ends with a “F*@k that, knock the vote.”

Youth voting matters, many young adults think that their vote won’t count; however it is actually the opposite. There are 46 million young people from the ages of 18-29 that are eligible to vote versus 39 million seniors that are eligible. Us as young people have the power to make a change. As an example from as seen in the video, the elders do not care about climate change because it won’t affect them; but it will affect us and we can vote to make a difference for our future. According to CIRCLE, “If individuals have been motivated to get to the polls once, they are more likely to return.” I believe that this video has already motivated many people who have seen this video to register, and that there will me more likely to have more votes in the upcoming election. It has been proven that young people’s participation in elections can influence the results.

As seen in this photo, without the young people’s votes, the four states would’ve flipped to Romney instead of Obama. The youth’s votes made a difference in the election and more young adults need to learn the truth about what a difference they can make.

There are many ways to influence young people to vote, The first way to even get started is just by registering. Not enough young adults feel motivated into even registering, however I believe that this video is a big eye opener, it was for me. the Another way is any form of contact, such as this video. “Young people who are contacted by an organization or a campaign are more likely to vote.” (CIRCLE). The purpose of this video was not only to make the youth angry, but to also form discussion and awareness about the topic. By engaging in conversation about different views, young adults can learn about how they feel and believe in, and they will want to vote on it.

This video is extremely important for young adults, it was meant to make us angry, motivate us to want to make a difference. Speaking for myself, this video was an eye opener for me, which is why I chose to this topic, I believe that every young adult should see this video and it might even motivate them as well.